The Easiest Homemade Bread – Fool Proof, No Knead Recipe

We are certainly not bread making masters and have always been rather intimidated but this is honestly the easiest homemade bread recipe we’ve ever made.

Mediterranean Diet Inspired Goal – More Homemade Things

One of our goals for this New Year is to make more things at home. Homemade bread is one of the recipes on our wish list.

We played around with different recipes and this is the easiest homemade bread recipe we came across. It’s fool proof, trust us, we are masters at messing up bread.

It does take time but only 3 ingredients and very little skill…perfect for us.

Why We Love Homemade Bread

Besides the fact that homemade bread is just magical, we have a few reasons for wanting to make our own –

• save money at the store
• reduce excess added sugars (this recipe doesn’t have any sugar added and some store brought breads can have quite a bit)
• less added preservatives and filler ingredients than store bought
• teach my kids how to make it
• smells and tastes heavenly

What You’ll Need for this Homemade Bread Recipe

It’s a pretty short list of both equipment and ingredients.

Ingredients are simple –

• all purpose or bread flour (we’ve used both and works great with either)
• salt
• warm water
• active dry yeast

Equipment Needed –

• bowl
• plastic wrap
• somewhere warm to let proof (we put ours in a warm oven that was turned off)
• dutch oven
• parchment paper

The Easiest Homemade Bread Recipe

Let us know if you try this bread recipe. It’s quite rustic and don’t be afraid if it doesn’t come out looking “perfect”, it’s the flavor and taste that matter.

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4.34 from 3 votes

The Easiest Homemade Bread

This is a fool proof recipe for making the easiest homemade bread. Just 3 simple ingredients and zero bread making skill needed.

Course bread/snack

Cuisine Mediterranean

Keyword bread

Cook Time 1 hour hour

Servings 1 loaf

Author Brynn McDowell, RDN at The Domestic DIetitian

Ingredients

• 3 cups bread flour (+ a bit more for dusting) (you can also use all purpose flour)
• 1 tsp active dry yeast
• 1.5 tsp kosher salt
• 1-2 cups warm water (~ 100 degrees F)

Instructions

• In a large bowl, sift together the flour, yeast and salt. Mix well so ingredients combine well
• Slowly stir in the warm water, start with about 1 cup, mix and add more about a tablespoon at a time until you've added another 1/2 cup.
• Gently stir together until dry ingredients are combined with water. Dough should be wet. If still a bit dry, slowly add remaining 1/2 cup warm water as needed.
• Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and allow to stand in a warm area (we preheat the oven to 100 degrees F, then turned it off and added the bowl right to the over). Allow to sit for 10-12 hours. Once finished, dough will be flat on top with bubbles on surface
• Remove bowl from oven (if that's where it sat) and place a 4-5 quart dutch oven or cast iron pot to the oven, with the lid on. Preheat oven (with the dutch oven inside) to 450 degrees F. Allow dutch over to sit in the oven for 30 minutes.
• Sprinkle a piece of parchment paper with a light dusting of flour. Remove dough from bowl and place on parchment paper. Roughly shape dough into a ball, sprinkle a bit of flour on top and loosely cover with plastic wrap. Let dough stand for 30 minutes.
• Carefully remove preheated dutch oven (it will be hot) and place parchment paper and dough to the dutch oven. Cover with lid and bake for 35-45 minutes.
• Remove lid and allow to bake an additional 8-10 minutes, until surface is golden brown. Remove and allow to cool slightly before serving.

Tips for Making Recipe

We have used both all purpose flour and bread flour to make this recipe and both worked well. Whichever one you choose is fine

Try not to over mix the dough after adding water. Mix until just combined and dough is still slightly wet.

Ensure parchment paper piece is large enough to cover sides of the dutch oven, otherwise bread may stick when baking.

Be careful when handling preheated dutch oven, it’s very warm!

We allowed bread to sit for 10-12 hours overnight in our oven (it was cold in our house). Simply preheat the oven to 100 degrees F, then turn oven temp off and place bowl of dough in the oven.